Steep Glacier Bed Knickpoints Mitigate Inland Thinning in Greenland
Greenland’s outlet glaciers have been a leading source of mass loss and accompanying sea‐level rise from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) over the last 25 years. The dynamic component of outlet glacier mass loss depends on both the ice flux through the terminus and the inland extent of glacier thinnin...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7900969 2023-05-15T16:20:58+02:00 Steep Glacier Bed Knickpoints Mitigate Inland Thinning in Greenland Felikson, Denis A. Catania, Ginny Bartholomaus, Timothy C. Morlighem, Mathieu Noël, Brice P. Y. 2021-01-19 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900969/ https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090112 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900969/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090112 © 2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Geophys Res Lett Research Letter Text 2021 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090112 2021-03-07T01:47:23Z Greenland’s outlet glaciers have been a leading source of mass loss and accompanying sea‐level rise from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) over the last 25 years. The dynamic component of outlet glacier mass loss depends on both the ice flux through the terminus and the inland extent of glacier thinning, initiated at the ice‐ocean interface. Here, we find limits to the inland spread of thinning that initiates at glacier termini for 141 ocean‐terminating outlet glaciers around the GrIS. Inland diffusion of thinning is limited by steep reaches of bed topography that we call “knickpoints.” We show that knickpoints exist beneath the majority of outlet glaciers but they are less steep in regions of gentle bed topography, giving glaciers in gentle bed topography the potential to contribute to ongoing and future mass loss from the GrIS by allowing the diffusion of thinning far into the ice sheet interior. Text glacier Greenland Ice Sheet PubMed Central (PMC) Greenland Geophysical Research Letters 48 2 |
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Research Letter |
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Research Letter Felikson, Denis A. Catania, Ginny Bartholomaus, Timothy C. Morlighem, Mathieu Noël, Brice P. Y. Steep Glacier Bed Knickpoints Mitigate Inland Thinning in Greenland |
topic_facet |
Research Letter |
description |
Greenland’s outlet glaciers have been a leading source of mass loss and accompanying sea‐level rise from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) over the last 25 years. The dynamic component of outlet glacier mass loss depends on both the ice flux through the terminus and the inland extent of glacier thinning, initiated at the ice‐ocean interface. Here, we find limits to the inland spread of thinning that initiates at glacier termini for 141 ocean‐terminating outlet glaciers around the GrIS. Inland diffusion of thinning is limited by steep reaches of bed topography that we call “knickpoints.” We show that knickpoints exist beneath the majority of outlet glaciers but they are less steep in regions of gentle bed topography, giving glaciers in gentle bed topography the potential to contribute to ongoing and future mass loss from the GrIS by allowing the diffusion of thinning far into the ice sheet interior. |
format |
Text |
author |
Felikson, Denis A. Catania, Ginny Bartholomaus, Timothy C. Morlighem, Mathieu Noël, Brice P. Y. |
author_facet |
Felikson, Denis A. Catania, Ginny Bartholomaus, Timothy C. Morlighem, Mathieu Noël, Brice P. Y. |
author_sort |
Felikson, Denis |
title |
Steep Glacier Bed Knickpoints Mitigate Inland Thinning in Greenland |
title_short |
Steep Glacier Bed Knickpoints Mitigate Inland Thinning in Greenland |
title_full |
Steep Glacier Bed Knickpoints Mitigate Inland Thinning in Greenland |
title_fullStr |
Steep Glacier Bed Knickpoints Mitigate Inland Thinning in Greenland |
title_full_unstemmed |
Steep Glacier Bed Knickpoints Mitigate Inland Thinning in Greenland |
title_sort |
steep glacier bed knickpoints mitigate inland thinning in greenland |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900969/ https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090112 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_source |
Geophys Res Lett |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7900969/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090112 |
op_rights |
© 2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090112 |
container_title |
Geophysical Research Letters |
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48 |
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2 |
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1766008975338242048 |